Taste the Rainbow
by afrocelt
Summary: When the sun tastes like divine ambrosia, who could resist flying into it's embrace...?


**Author's note: Synaesthesia - a condition where a sensation in one of the senses triggers another, involuntary sensation in another sense. Some can taste numbers. Some can hear colours. Some can even feel when others are being touched.**  
 **Inspired by R.J. Anderson's "Ultraviolet," and an undying love for this winged child, I wondered what it would be like if Icarus had a form of synaesthesia. Still a long way from being either complete (or accurate), I hope this little experimental free write gets some reviews so I can make it better :)**

Purple ourako splotches, echoing out to feathery white. They shine in my mind's eye to my mouth and my tongue, slipping out onto it as pretty tasting flowers, sweet like nectar. The best I ever tasted.

I bathe in the light fire. It sings to me in a smooth and silky squeal. It's filled with happy happy ecstasy that I feel in every pore of my skin bones. I sigh too.

"Come closer." She says.

"You're so far away. I long to embrace you as my own. Come closer."

"I can't –" I say in my weak and seduced state.

"I have no way to get to you. I'm stuck in this stone tower. The king wants to take our feelings away."

"The king? Which king? No king can separate a mother and her child. Come to me, my son."

"But how?"

"I'll show you. Soon."

With that her shine retreats behind the shade. The honey-sweet disappears, watery blue floods from under my tongue and out into the sky. Or from the sky to my tongue. I'm not sure.

"Icarus! Come, the nightly meal has arrived."

Father calls. A rusty brown rasp against the bland tasting air, full of care and once upon a time, strength – but now weary. So weary. I go to the 'meal' that tastes of glass green nothing and feels like shivers in a stodge – barely enough of it to satisfy one stomach far less two. Father only swallows a bite. He gives the rest to me, as usual. I let the slime sink into me. Silently say thank you. Then retreat back to my corner of the floor.

The guard enters again to collect the bowl. I shoot him a violent purple glare, as usual. He gives me a glass green glaze. Nothing but nothing. I wish he'd shatter already.

I look up and out the high hole. There are two in this stone. One which lets me see Her say hello and one which lets me see Her say goodbye.

"Goodnight Icarus."

 _Night father._

I don't voice, just tell with the colours in my eyes. They're an open brown. Father's are the same. Between us our feelings can fly faster than a bird in the sky.

"Hello child."

Dew ripples down my cheek, chased by light. A golden beam lifts my head and pries my eyes open. I squint. Search past my father's corner to the lower hole. There she sits just on the sea edge, floating still.

"Hi."

My voice a little grass-grey squiggle.

"Today you'll see, my child. Today is just the beginning."

"Of what?"

"Look up at the blue air. What do you see?"

"Berries. It tastes like berries."

"What sort?"

"Dark ones. Dark ones with a light taste."

"And there?"

"Those are the birds."

"Yes. Look at them. Watch how I play with them."

With that, a golden finger reaches out and strokes the wing of the nearest bird. The bird swirls around the beam effortlessly, the light dancing musically between its feathers. One floats down. It lands at my feet. It's a deep metallic bluey green, not quite as salty as the sea but it definitely carries a tinge. I pick it up.

"Icarus -"

I whirl around, surprised, dropping the feather again at Father's feet. He's out from his corner, a metre away. His face is pasted with shock, eyes wide and far too open, their brown light speaks volumes before he even says another word.

"You were talking… it's been so long, I'd thought… but you can, you can speak after all!"

Father wraps me in his arms, rusty voice shining a bright copper just for a second. We stay like that, and I almost forget until She warms my back impatiently. I peel myself away from Father, and he looks lost for a moment. But he settles back into his rusty frame.

"Who were you speaking to son?"

I glance up towards her blinding light, but as if to warn against it, She glowers all the brighter. I change my gaze, pointing instead towards the flitting shadows.

"The birds. Look how they fly."

Father looks up, distracted. At first his glance is fleeting and filled with that glass green nothing – but then, a spark. Old fire. As he watches the birds, the swirling diving shapes fill his open eyes and his gaze flames a brilliant orange.

"Icarus,"

He turns to me, his voice a shining copper again,

"son, you've just given me a marvellous idea!"

Things start to change. Father finds bits of metal that have a sweet sharp taste to their glare and their scratch. He pulls strips of wood up from the edges of the floor, the splinters large and small digging beneath his nails. Guards bring greasy candle stumps - father saves every drop. The birds circle with every round day, Father coaxes them in and steals their bluey green flight with fury that makes his voice shine a brighter copper every day.

He makes tools from the metal, the tools make frames from the wood, the frames make a bed for the wax and the bed holds the bluey green feathers.

And all the while and every round day, She circles and smiles, wider and wider, brighter and brighter, waking us earlier and earlier and bringing us more and more birds with bluey green salt for flight.

Now we have wings, father and I.

Father smiles and She smiles with him.

She's beaming now.

"Hello child."

She speaks in silver now. Different, something different about the way she sounds, the way she tastes. Something bitter, or too sweet. Over ripe.

"I'm here," I squeak back.

"It's time Icarus," She and father seem to speak in unison –

"Time for us –

"for you –

"to –

"FLY!"

"Be careful son –

"Come to me my child –

"these wings can bring freedom –

"so much freedom –

"but they are fragile –

"I can make you immortal like me…

"So hear my warning –

"All you have to do is –

"stay behind me –

"come closer to me –

"follow my every move –

"I'll guide you right –

"neither too close to the sea nor the sun –

"reach for the heavens of the gods themselves –

"for they can both bring our downfall –

"Never look down, fly only higher –

"Don't take your eyes off me –

"You'll soon reach your destination -

"Son."

"Child."

Copper, Silver, Copper, Silver, Copper, Silver…

We lift, father and I.  
We float. The wind tastes of salt and sounds like leather, invisibly stretching across the sky –

So this is what it's like to fly.

My legs have disappeared and my arms fled into wings, a sea of stolen bluey green flight. Father has the same, glides above me, below me, I follow, a follower.

'Come child,'

Red shoots through my arms and chest but I push down against the leathery wind, it scrapes against my arms but I push still, clawing my way up and up towards her silver which gets brighter and brighter and brighter –

Behind me, copper fades to rust.

Her silver splinters through my wings.

Turns white.

Tastes hot.

Blue green salt everywhere.

White gone.

White black-

-blue black-

black

 **…black…**


End file.
